Brazilian super-boss Carlos Ghosn has a plan to beat the energy crisis — he’s pushing both Renault and Nissan into making electric cars. But isn’t his initiative too little, too late?

WHAT a time to be a car boss. The soaring cost of oil, political pressure to reduce CO2 emissions, consumer panic over petrol and diesel prices. Then imagine you are running two car companies.

"These are not problems," says Carlos Ghosn, perched on the edge of his seat, "these are challenges. Every car manufacturer is going to have to deal with this. How do we modify the technology? How do we modify the product? How do we modify the message to the market in order to make a return?"

Ghosn, chief executive of Renault and Nissan, barely draws breath. It's been that way for three years, since he added the top slot at the French firm to his Japanese posting. Back then, most in the business world were astonished that one man thought he could run two global companies based 6,000 miles apart, even if they were in semi-merged "alliance".